Faith Works 5-23-20

Faith Works 5-23-20

Jeff Gill

 

How seminary prepares us for the unexpected

___

So there's my Hebrew class.

 

Truth be told, I've really not used my studies in Hebrew in any, or at least many substantive ways as a preacher of the Christian Gospel.

 

While the good news has many roots in the Old Testament, and I reflect on them often in my preaching, there are plenty of great resources for understanding everything from Genesis to Malachi in English (yes, including the version ol' King James authorized and oversaw).

 

Occasionally I'll consider aspects of the Hebrew text in the language it was first recorded, I have to admit it's rare. What the study of Hebrew for a mere year did do for me, though, was to awaken in me an awareness of the essential distance between me and the original manuscripts, and the various textual and editorial bridges God has used to get those insights to me, on a page or in pixels on a screen.

 

When I read "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" I don't always think precisely in the moment about "Adonai roee, lo echsar," but I'm aware it's there, hovering in the background.

 

Which is relevant to our present moment not because you can find a cure for CO VID-19 in Hebrew, but because that wider, deeper awareness of how things fit together is really what's equipped me for dealing with the complications of life "under quarantine."

 

It's been a running joke for many of us in ministry that Bible college or seminary or our pastoral training did not include how to shoot and edit video, or ways to link up technophobic people through online conferencing tools, let alone ways to set up a worship area where everyone is six feet away from each other.

 

And it's an older piece of dark humor that we don't any of us get an education on how to read financial reports or audits, in plumbing or electrical work, or even much training on teaching (which is different than preaching, let me tell you).

 

What most ministerial training does do, whether it's online or by extension or residency, is give us a deeply rooted grounding in the theology and devotional understandings of our tradition – how we think with and respond to the great questions of faith in our time. Why is there sin and evil in the world? Why doesn't God stop bad things from happening to good people? How can communities of faith respond to the brokenness of this world with a healing word and a redemptive message, both in word and deed?

 

The thinking being, I'd say, that you can learn financial literacy from a number of sources, and definitely there's lots of advice on broken toilets you can get from the home improvement store to your church parking lot, but there are relatively few places where you can sit down, in person or virtually, with a group of people and wrestle with what it means to be faithful, ethical, and holy. Holiness is not discussed on many street corners, or with your average person on the street.

 

One theology professor I had in seminary, who was challenged on his sharp tone in quizzing a student about the day's reading, responded "if you find question's about God's goodness hard to answer on a sunny weekday afternoon in a classroom, wait until a grieving parent asks you to explain these things at 3 am in an ER waiting area." The class was very quiet for a few moments, and then we went back to work on the text at hand.

 

Which is where the challenge of doing digital and distanced worship, while simultaneously reaching through these electronic obstacles and opportunities, is directly related to Hebrew and Greek and theology and the Bible, in my mind. We have to be aware of the complex and layered reality of the human condition, and that both sin and blessing are often pretty tangled up in people. As we deal with this world problems, we're trying to hold up eternal realities to the light of day, to illumine dark corners of our experience.

 

And I can say this after thirty-five years and more of working in church contexts: if we tried to tidy up the curriculum by current standards, and teach today's seminarians about video production values and online tools, how relevant would it be in twenty years, in ten? When I was in seminary, electronic stencil cutters were pretty cool (but I learned about them on the job, not in class).

 

Like any level of education, what's cutting edge today is junk tomorrow. The need for ministerial training is to help develop those deeper understandings of God and world and renewal and connection . . . and learning Hebrew is simply a tool to that more lasting work.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still trying to master Zoom. Tell him what you have enjoyed learning from scratch at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 5-27-20

Notes from my Knapsack 5-27-20

Jeff Gill

 

Where there's no smoke, are there flames?
___

Due to some deaths and illnesses in my family, my wife and I have been traveling more during these last two months of restrictions than we have probably in any other two month period of the thirty-five years of our marriage (see how I slipped that in? Happy anniversary, hon!).

 

We have sadly been like too many working Americans, not taking the time off we could, and usually taking it in short pieces, and putting off until retirement more than perhaps is prudent, but here we are.

 

Yet after decades of four and eight day vacations, we've had to spend literally months apart, with trips to Texas and Indiana and managing "self-quarantines" and care and caution while helping out elderly parents. All our travel has, we believe, fallen into the "necessary" category, while working hard to minimize risk, not so much to ourselves, but to those who are at risk that we need to be able to be around.

And my own work, to the extent that I've been "working" as a minister, has been contorted beyond recognition, the hardest part being pastoral care when people die (yes, including one from COVID-19) and there's effectively no way for the usual ministry of presence to be part of my response.

 

Looking ahead, for all of us, is hard. We have to take the best counsel we can, and sort out various and competing visions of what might happen next. And where there's competition, there's likely to be politics, and sure enough, we've politicized epidemiology and public health. Okay, so we factor for that, too, but neither extreme is going to guide most of us.

 

What really baffles me, though, is that no one really knew until about fifteen minutes ago even 50% of the likely course and speed of this virus. The certainty I hear from some about what was known and what we're sure of now I think is misplaced.

 

So people saying the public health actions of mid-March were extreme and foolish I think are like people we see evacuated from homes downwind of wildfire, who come back to untouched homes a few days later and say "that was unnecessary, nothing happened."

 

Our problem now is that this is still burning in patches upwind, so to speak, with unburned fuels between us and the fire, so it's a tough call all around between mitigation and evacuation. But if you insist you won't evacuate a second time, and you've got brush and scrub growing right up to your house and under the eaves . . . and your home has redwood siding with cedar shingles, I'm going to really be surprised if you don't even want to put out sprinklers in the lawn on the upwind side.

 

I still don't know for sure what the right course of action going forward is, but I'm certainly thinking at the very least we all need to reduce potential fuels around structures, and inhibit the spread of new ignitions, even if the initial wave of grass fires didn't do as much damage as we feared at first.

 

And yeah, I'm gonna wear masks when I'm out and about. Call it mitigation, call it excessive, but to me it's like extinguishing campfires thoroughly and reporting smoke and trimming brush near my house. Call it prudent, if that old fashioned word still has any weight.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he is, to be honest, not always prudent. But it's a good goal to have. Tell him how you measure prudence at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 5-16-20

Faith Works 5-16-20

Jeff Gill

 

Floods, fires, and infections
___

As a preacher, my stock in trade is bringing people together.

 

Whether for Sunday services or special occasions, a big part of what my work has always been about is how to call an assembly into session, convening gatherings, taking people to church. Even if it's not in a church building, whether up on a hilltop park or out at camp, a circle in a parking lot or a group on a work trip, the point is always about bringing people together.

 

A congregation is literally a collection with one another ("con" in Latin is usually "with"); a convocation is a body called ("vocare, as in vocal") to be with each other.

 

But sometimes our calling as ministers is to call people in different ways than just into a physical gathering. I've been involved in situations when flooding was threatening an area, and people were sent to notify residents and tell them it's time to evacuate.

 

With a flood, especially in the Midwest, we all usually have some warning, some ability to anticipate what's going on. Days of rain, and the creeks rise over their banks, rivers move into flood stage, and weather staff can start to measure upstream rainfall and calculate crests and risk.

 

Even then, you can run into issues where someone after you knock on the door says "I'm not leaving." It can be because the resident doesn't understand the risk, and you have to explain things; it might be someone saying "the river's never gotten up to this house" and they've not evacuated before, thinking they never will. Often it's simply fear: where will I go? What will happen to me, or my possessions? It's a pastoral kind of act to explain and interpret and ultimately get the person at risk to grab their papers and photos and get away.

 

A little more outside of most people's experience is wildfire. It's more common out west, but in theory and practice it can happen in open areas after long dry stretches right here. This is why our fire departments have grass fire training and even special equipment, up to vehicles, to fight a spreading conflagration burning out in fields. Our many roads even in rural Licking County make for natural firebreaks, but it can happen that a fire burns across a section, and residences downwind are at risk.

 

So once again, rescue personnel can find themselves in an awkward situation. You're knocking on a door, and the person who answers might not even know there's a fire out there. You can't say for certain what the risk is, but it's there, because of wind direction and terrain and the known natural patterns of spread. If the resident says "I'll take my chances," you don't have the time and leisure to drive them around, show them the current extent of the flames, and lay out on a map in detail why you think they're at risk. And generally, only law enforcement, and then under certain circumstances, can mandate evacuation. So fire service and volunteers can be as convincing as they want, but if the smoke let alone the fire isn't visible, and the occupants unwilling, you can find yourself with a known hazard in the middle of your fire fighting plan.

 

Floods, fires – those in public safety let alone pastoral care have certain challenges in front of them asking the public they are trying to reach to do something they may not want to do. Whatever your job title or hat, it's preaching. You have a saving message you wish to communicate, and often it's a resistant audience you're preaching to, one at a time or in groups or en masse.

 

Infection, though. Very few of us have any training, basically none any experience with dealing with that sort of threat to public health, or how to respond. Not preachers or even those in public health, let alone public safety. And the public we're trying to communicate with, in church communities or the county as a whole, doesn't see the smoke or fires except for those tragically very close to the source of concern. The idea that waters are rising may cause some to say "floods have never reached me, and if they do, it's my time." But we evacuate people as much to reduce risk for others as for themselves, since a later rescue is risky for more than just the rescuee.

 

The best part of an evacuation is when people go back home and nothing happened. The floods didn't rise above the doorsill, the fire burned around your lot. It's also easy to say later it was unnecessary. Maybe so. It was a precaution, an inconvenient and uncomfortable precaution with risks of its own. But sometimes you call people apart, so that later you can call them together again, to share with them good news.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been out on a couple of fire lines, and knows that you can't always predict which way a wildfire will spread. Let him know how you're doing evacuated to your own home at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 5-2020

Notes from my Knapsack 5-2020

Jeff Gill

 

Weeds and viruses and the world

___

 

Every year, there are new spring weeds that dominate the landscape, lawns or gardens alike.

 

There are the regulars, like dandelions, although they too have their ups and downs, depending on the winter past and how spring settles into the soil, provoking the roots and stimulating growth.

 

A mild winter and a damp cool spring, and I know without even going too far off the path that it's going to be a good year for ticks. Beware!

 

What I've not learned to read as well are the plant indications. Garlic mustard is an invasive non-native that's plagued both wild lands and forest understories, but also our un-mulched garden corners.

 

I've read some tasty sounding recipes for a kind of pesto you can make from it, but haven't been that motivated so far. With more time at home, my interest has been to reduce my chemical use to as close to nil as I can, and pluck the little villains before they start to wind around my now fading daffodils and launching tulips. Garlic mustard is like the disastrous oregano experiment I made some years ago: give it a season and it will take over a stretch of garden like nobody's business.

 

Purple deadnettle is not new, but I am surprised by just how much of it I'm seeing this year. Something about the soil temperature and sunlight has been good for it, and it's giving garlic mustard a run for its money. A friend said on Facebook that it is edible as well, but I'm going to work through more canned ravioli before I take that step. Worth knowing, I guess.

 

What most of these have in common, though, from dandelions since 1607 to garlic mustard and purple deadnettle more recently, is that they "come from away." They are non-native invasives, like zebra mussels in Lake Erie or the emerald ash borers and more recently infamous "murder hornets" out of Asia.

 

The challenge of a global economy is that what used to be a barrier, like an ocean, is now a pathway and an open door. The arrival of European colonists in the Americas brought bacteria and viruses into this continent which had not been dealt with by human immune systems for millennia, and Native American Indians died in horrific numbers. Medicinal plants like the dandelion (yes, a medicinal plant!) became a plague across disturbed soil in a few generations after Virginia became a colony; the weed we know as plantain in the Midwest was known to native people as "Englishman's foot" because it followed the agriculture and settlements of those newer arrivals.

 

So I pluck purple deadnettle from my garden after having pulled all the garlic mustard shoots, and I reflect on our home restrictions which have made this intensive weeding possible due to the arrival of a new virus from somewhere in the heart of Asia. The adjustments to Old World viruses involved mass death; now the Western Hemisphere looks for a more adaptive response that includes killing the virus, not people, through restrictions of movement and tracing of infectious paths through the population.

 

We are not done, in other words, even when we learn what to do about coronaviruses. Nature around the world has bugs and bats and bacteria which are themselves evolving and changing every day, sometimes for the better, and occasionally to become more lethal. Our lessons and actions now are going to become part of an adaptive response we are likely to need again and again as the world turns, and our ecosystems thrive.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not an epidemiologist or even a biologist, but he finds life fascinating. Tell him how you're adapting to the vitality and mobility of life and living things at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 5-9-20

Faith Works 5-9-20

Jeff Gill

 

Tech support as pastoral care

___

"No, the cursor. The blinking thing. On your screen. Okay, do you have a mouse or a touchpad? Right, a computer, but how do you control things on the screen? I know, you don't feel like you're controlling anything, I know. But when you -- right, a keyboard, but when you . . . okay, that's a touchpad. So when you touch it, the thing that moves around on the screen? Right, now, move that down to the bottom of the window you have open, and . . . it went black?"

 

In the past, as someone with a measure of comfort and familiarity with computers and HTML and online stuff, I've found the role of "tech support" mixed in with ministry.

 

Tech support is that number you call, or the department at work you contact, and they often ask "have you checked to make sure it's turned on?" Because it's often the heart of the problem. Tech support extends to "you'll need to replace your AE-35 unit" but more often it's a series of instructions over the phone or video link that helps you, the inexperienced, make your complex technology work the way you want it to.

 

Right off the top, I want to say that doing tech support for many, many church members (not always older ones, either) through these last few weeks has been a wonderful spiritual discipline for me. As I've said in this space before, patience is not always my strong point; God has in many ways worked with me on this need. Cultivating patience as I walk someone through a series of steps that I do almost unconsciously, and so find hard to describe in stages, and help another person learn how to do it on their terms: it has taught me patience.

 

Not enough, but I'm getting there.

 

And once we've gotten the video conference link to work, and the mutes off (or on, as needed) and the chat box under control; as people get used to how videos work in a browser window with a separate set of nested controls from their computer's controls for volume and screen size; as more church members have gotten used to doing worship at home, together online – in all of this, there have been some definite upsides.

 

There are people in our congregations that have never felt more connected to their church, and more included in their involvement, than they do right now. It's not that they asked for this or want it to continue, but it's just as true that they feel less like shut-ins or outcasts than they have in years. We have people dealing with illness and chemo and disease who are not "those people" when they're not in the building, they're "one among us" now as we've always intended. This should make all of us in church leadership think hard about how we can maintain the work of connection without needing stay-at-home orders to accomplish it.

 

And I will admit, as a minister, I've known these people for years: they have anxiety issues and agoraphobia, neuropathy and low blood pressure. They are older couples with complex health problems, but they are also single parents who work late Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. A recording of the sermon whether delivered on a CD or available online is a solution for some, but the wider experience is something they're blocked from on multiple levels. Right now, the worship field is level.

 

Gathered worship is still our goal and what I think of as a best practice, scripturally and personally. But the experience of online worship has led me to reflect on why I believe that, how it works in practice, and what we can do in the future. As we get closer to some form, however limited, of being present in a worship space, I don't want to lose sight of some of the new angles I've started to see through these severe limitations, which actually have made some new relationships and inspiration possible.

 

And I promise to share them with you as I reach a little better understanding of those opportunities!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still working on that whole patience thing. Tell him how you've done or experienced tech support as pastoral care at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.